Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst spent several weeks in Afghanistan covering the aftermath of the American withdrawal from the country and the Taliban’s resurgence.
And while he was preparing to head back to the Harrisburg area to visit his family, he’ll soon be on his way back to Jerusalem, so that he can get right back to reporting.
“Honestly I’m living the dream right now,” Yingst said, in a phone interview from Duha, Qatar. “I’m in the middle of what I envisioned I would be doing.”
Yingst grew up in Linglestown and is a graduate of Central Dauphin High School. And by the time he was in college, Yingst already had experience covering events in war zones.
While still a journalism student at American University, Yingst was a credentialed member of the press reporting on fighting in Gaza between Israeli security forces and Palestinians.
Not long after that, he was covering riots, marches and police actions in Baltimore, Maryland and Ferguson, Missouri after the deaths of Freddie Gray and Michael Brown - and at one point, was arrested in the process. And as a reporter for One America News Network, he was a member of the White House Press Corps, questioning Trump administration press secretaries.
“My job as a journalist is not to promote what anyone is doing, it’s to hold them accountable,” Yingst said - and that applies to everyone, whether it be American police and politicians, or Afghani militants. “I think that even when you’re interviewing these dangerous people, our role as journalists does not change.”
Part of his responsibility as a journalist, Yingst said, is to tell the stories of those dangerous people, so that such complicated and deadly conflicts can be better understood. And that often means he and his team are potentially putting themselves in danger. Their work puts them at risk from everything ranging from roadside bombs and sniper fire, to sitting across a table with someone with an AK-47 in their lap.
“The security situation is definitely something you have to consider,” Yingst said. ”You’re around members of the Taliban - people who previously would have killed me - and we’ve been in the same room earlier this year. They’re now interview subjects. And it was a very weird feeling to be sitting down with these people. Because you have to remember that they’re human, and that they have motivation, and they have reasons why they do what they do.”
But Yingst said that his empathy and objectivity for his interview subjects cannot conflict with his obligation to ask them challenging questions - even if his attempts to get that information could potentially lead to violence. It is a careful line to walk, he said, but the questions don’t change, whether he’s speaking to a young Taliban militant or interviewing high-profile Taliban members — members who now hold positions in the government following the Taliban’s takeover.
“While we were in Afghanistan, I interviewed Anas Haqqani, of the infamous Haqqani network,” Yingst said. “His brother [Sirajuddin Haqqani, current Afghanistan Minister of the Interior under the Taliban] has a $10 million bounty on his head from the United States. When you’re talking to someone who is the head of, basically, the major suicide bombers for the Taliban for years, it can be quite a delicate conversation. This is someone who has killed, en masse, and been able to go to sleep that night.”
Trey Yingst, a native of Harrisburg and foreign correspondent with Fox News , poses with Afghan children while on assignment.
To put it another way, Yingst said, “If they kill civilians I will cover that, and I will ask them why.”
And that also includes, for instance, covering the American drone strike in the end of August. The strike was initially thought to have targeted ISIS bombers, but was later found to have mistakenly killed 10 Afghani civilians, seven of whom were children.
And an equally pressing obligation, Yingst said, is to tell the stories of those civilians - people caught in the crossfire in these conflicts. And those stories are just as vital for his audience to hear, even if they are further removed from the major geopolitical picture.
“There are also other stories that aren’t directly linked to the United States,” Yingst said. “Previous corruption in the Afghan government, and now the rule of the Taliban, that will continue to affect the Afghan people - half whom rely on international aid to survive. And I think I really tried to bring that out in our reporting, speaking with families with malnourished children, people who are really affected by what happens in months and years to come.”
Yingst said that it was important that people remember that “the majority of people in every conflict that we cover are innocent bystanders, and they’re stuck in the middle of this conflict. We always try to shine light on those stories because - it’s cliche but I say over and over again - our role in many cases, is giving a voice to the voiceless.”
In Afghanistan, Yingst said, the people are just like the people found anywhere else he’s lived. There are artists, athletes, musicians and families just trying to survive. Their cultures may differ, but their common humanity is the same.
“There are billions of people, a third of the world’s population, that lives on less than a dollar a day,” he said. “And there are many people that have nothing, and still will give you everything. And I think that really always surprises me. They don’t have a penny to their name, living literally hour to hour to survive. And yet, they’re willing to give you their last cup of tea.”
The stress that comes from being relatively high-profile targets in potentially life-threatening situations is very real, Yingst said. It requires steps to make his news team isn’t being followed as they drive through certain areas, being careful not to leave themselves as targets for sniper fire, and sleeping with shoes on to make sure he can run if needed.
“It can be difficult,” he said. “I’m not Superman, and sometimes the situation that we’re in, requires a lot of focus and it requires you to handle stress in a way that is helpful to your safety.”
The job requires a constant state of alertness, which takes a toll on mental health, Yingst said.
“When you leave the compound with the hotel in Kabul, you are a target,” Yingst said. “You are absolutely at risk, and you have to make constant calculations, to make sure that you’re not killed. I’m constantly thinking, ‘Okay, if a roadside bomb goes off in front of us and we can’t get out, where do I go from here?’”
His upcoming return to his hometown to visit family is a much-needed rest, but even then, it will take effort to release the tension. Yingst said that “it’s something that I actively work on.”
“There are times even in the field where I’ll tell my crew, ‘Hey, I need a few minutes,’” Yingst said. “I just need to do some breathing exercises and take a few minutes to myself to make sure that I’m clear headed. I also make sure to take time after a very stressful story to decompress, and kind of integrate back into society.
“I will take some time in central PA and hang out, have a bonfire with my parents and my sister, and work my way back into a normal life,” he said. “There is a real shock to jumping back into society. Suddenly you can eat at a restaurant outside and not have to think about what happens if a suicide bomber approaches.”
But once his visit is over, Yingst is eager to return to the job, and tell the important stories that are in places of conflict - an opportunity he was proud to have with Fox News.
“My reminder to people - and it’s something that I try to remind myself and remind my team as we approach these stories around the world - is to be empathetic,” Yingst said. “You can learn a lot by listening. And you can also, I think be a better reporter and a better human, by remembering that sometimes we are there on the worst day of someone’s life. And we have a responsibility as journalists to tell their story to the world.”
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